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Of Birds and Baseball | Knowledge & Wisdom

Some ball hawks don’t need gloves. Watching baseball and watching birds require similar skills. Both employ patience and imagination, sometimes deep thought; both progress slowly, appear boring from a distance, but are punctuated by bursts of joyous activity; neither is hampered by time. Over the years I’ve discovered that major-league ballparks are good places for birdwatching. […]

A magazine cover featuring an egret wearing a baseball cap, holding binoculars, with a baseball stadium in the background. Text reads: "A Bird-Watcher's Guide to Fenway Park.

Yankee Magazine Cover, May 1993

Photo Credit: Jesse Unruh
Yankee Magazine Cover, May 1993
Yankee Magazine Cover, May 1993
Photo Credit : Jesse Unruh
Some ball hawks don’t need gloves.

Watching baseball and watching birds require similar skills. Both employ patience and imagination, sometimes deep thought; both progress slowly, appear boring from a distance, but are punctuated by bursts of joyous activity; neither is hampered by time.

Over the years I’ve discovered that major-league ballparks are good places for birdwatching. With few exceptions, they hug migration flyways: the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the Great Lakes, the interior rivers … Boston’s Fenway Park—nestled along the Charles River and the Atlantic Ocean—may be the best ballpark in America for watching birds.

—“Of Birds & Baseball,” by Ted Levin, May 1993

Yankee Magazine

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